Confirmed: Part of the Super Bowl Halftime Show Was Faked

Speculation has been swirling since the Super Bowl that part of the halftime show was faked, and now it has been confirmed. The New York Daily News reports that Flea, the bassist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, said in a statement posted to the band’s website that band members faked their performances during the show.

The speculation that Flea had faked his performance began after Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid tweeted that he was suspicious, writing, “That guitar is plugged into NOTHING,” the story reports.

On the band’s website, Flea wrote, “When we were asked by the NFL and Bruno to play our song ‘Give It Away’ at the Super Bowl, it was made clear to us that the vocals would be live, but the bass, drums, and guitar would be pre-recorded.”

He added, “There was not any room for argument on this, the NFL does not want to risk their show being botched by bad sound, period.”

Flea also wrote: “We recorded a track for the day, just banged one out from our hearts that was very like in spirit to the versions we have been playing live the last few years with our beloved Josh [Klinghoffer] on guitar.”

This is kind of funny to me. Back in the early Nineties I was working freelance for MTV at a Spring Break shoot in Daytona Beach. I was assigned to The Red Hot Chili Peppers for their performance on Club MTV. Which was them performing out on a beach stage. The show wanted the band to fake being live. During the rehearsal, as a protest, the band jumped off the stage, while the music still played and went into the crowd, where Flea threw a bikini beach girl on got into some real trouble with what he did to her. And lead to them being banned by MTV. All because they apposed to the fake performance. I guess they didn’t want to protest this one.